ICSI:ShapingtheIndustry’sFuture

by Kate Sanchez

on 01 Dec 2018

It’s Fall and it’s breeding season in Diamond Valley.

For most mare and stallion owners, spring is their busy time, but for Dr. Rick Beck of In Foal Incorporated, breeding season lasts all year, thanks in large part to the most recent advances in equine reproductive practices.

Growing up and being ranch-raised in Montana, Dr. Beck knew from a young age that horses would be a part of his life. Back then, his family used a team of horses to feed cattle in the winter and saddle horses to move the cattle to the mountains in the summer. They were a part of everyday life for Dr. Beck, and still are today, just in a much different way. Dr. Beck has been in the field of veterinary medicine for about 45 years. He started out driving an ambulatory truck for a short time, travelling around to certain areas and working on horses with various problems; then in 1990, he purchased 10 acres in Diamond Valley in Hemet to focus on more intensive care. It was then that his current practice, In Foal Inc., was born. Since that time, much expansion has occurred, mainly to allow for more recipient mares to live onsite at the facility. Today, Dr. Beck and his staff focus their work solely as a reproductive practice facility where they deal with breeding and its many facets; from problematic mares and cooled and frozen semen, to Embryo Transfer (ET) and cutting-edge Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI).

A procedure that has been performed in humans for several years, ICSI is now offering up ground-breaking options in horse-breeding, as well. ICSI refers to a procedure done in a breeding laboratory where a single sperm is used to directly inject an egg. It is a process which can be equally as beneficial for mares and stallions whose genetics are still in high-demand and quite desirable, but without the process, would have a marginal or non-existent breeding future.

Dr. Beck and his team are some of the few practices who utilize ICSI to aid in assisting problematic breeding horses, and he says there are several advantages to doing so. The first being the fact that it has really given “life” to another population of broodmares. While ET is the first procedure that enabled mares to have more breeding longevity, ICSI came along and solved even some problems that ET could not. From plugged oviducts, to mares with persistent infections, some mares have issues being able to produce an embryo or maintain a pregnancy, therefore can no longer contribute to the equine population’s genepool. Through ICSI, these mares can now contribute oocytes through the program. “In this care, it (ICSI) allows us to utilize a mare’s genetics, that before, would have never had a future in breeding”, Dr. Beck shares. To do this, oocytes must be aspirated from the mare. This is done through the vagina with an ultrasound guided needle. The number of ooctyes collected depends on the number of follicles aspirated. Once aspiration is complete, the fluid which was withdrawn during the aspiration is placed in a dish under a microscope, and oocytes are searched for. Once identified, the oocytes are moved into another dish which is clear of debris and material from the aspiration and mature oocytes are found. At that point, the oocyte will be matured, then injected with a sperm, incubated for 9 days, at which time it become an embryo which can be transferred into the uterus of a recipient mare or frozen. Similarly, ICSI has allowed for numerous foals to be born out of a single mare each year, rather than the mare just carrying one foal each season.

Mature ICSI embryo (blastocyst)

The second advantage of ICSI, according to Dr. Beck, is the procedure’s ability to help conserve valuable semen. Normally in breeding, a dose would contain 1 billion sperm cells, but with ICSI, only 1 single cell is required to fertilize an egg. Stallions that have gone sterile or may have marginal semen quality would typically be done with their breeding careers at a certain point, but ICSI allows owners to not only still profit off the genetics of their stallions, but also preserve favorable genetics. This procedure is accomplished by taking a single straw of frozen semen that contains millions of cells and would typically be used to breed just one mare and making a small cut at the end of the straw. That cut alone allows for thousands of sperm cells to perform through ICSI because it takes just one of these cells, injected into an egg, to breed a mare. So, the process essentially opens the door to multiple mares being bred from a single cut in the straw, or hundreds from one straw via ICSI. Dr. Beck says he’s had great success with this method. For instance, race horse stallion, Walk Thru Fire, that had insemination issues because of his age, is one that the experienced veterinarian has helped breed mares. Thanks to the ICSI procedure. “I bred mares on 66 cycles, with one and a half straws of semen from Walk Thru Fire”, Beck says, “that was impossible before ICSI”.

Eggs (oocytes) just aspirated from mares follicles

According to Dr. Beck, the third advantage lies in the idea that a “rebirth” of genetics can occur because of ICSI. Those legendary sires who have passed on can now sire hundreds of more foals through one straw of semen that’s been frozen. For instance, Dr. Beck is still producing foals by leading sires First Down Dash and Smart Little Lena. In fact, he’s produced thirty Smart Little Lena offspring, has four Special Effort embryo in recipient mares and has also brought foals to life by stallions such as Streakin Six, Chicks Beduino, Freckles Playboy, and Docs Hickory. Dr. Beck says he’s seen a trend in breeders utilizing the ICSI procedure, adding that barrel racers and cutters tend to seek the use of this process the most, to breed to the best, most competitive horses available.

When first trying it out, Dr. Beck worked for two years before achieving his first pregnancy via ICSI. Now, in 2018 alone, he’s done 180 ICSI transfers with success, 150 of them being in the first six months of the year. The clinic averaged 200 aspirations through June of this year, and approximately 8.2 eggs per aspiration. For horses being bred via ICSI, the season starts in September as hundreds of embryos are being frozen. Meanwhile, a year-round breeding season adds some flexibility to effectively managing a recipient herd and hand-selecting those mares that will best sync up with the cycles being used.

Performing such intricate breeding procedures hasn’t always been an easy experience, but according to Dr. Beck, it is always a rewarding one. What may sound like an abundance of work for some, is “fun” for the seasoned veterinarian. Dr. Beck adds that for him, it’s always been “fascinating work” and feels honored at the opportunity to bring life back to so many horses, especially those legendary stallions who are deceased. “It’s absolutely incredible”, he says. From hard work with trial and error and lots of practice, to producing foals that at one time were not even considered to be born again, it’s obvious that Dr. Rick Beck and his staff at In Foal Inc. are performing procedures that are shaping the future of our horse industry!